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Recipe: Orange Chocolate Chip Scones

Get ready for some Easter themed photos accompanying some Spring inspired scones. Yes, Easter was yesterday, but a holiday featuring a magical bunny, soft pastels, adorable baby animals, fun crafts, and lots and lots of chocolate and jelly beans should be celebrated year long, right? Or at least all Spring? Or at least until I run out of sunny scone recipe ideas (never going to happen I seriously have over 50 recipes lined up) and my mom puts away the Easter decorations photography props? Come on, I thought you were on my side!

Orange Chocolate Chip Scones

Orange Chocolate Chip Scones

Recipe: Chocolate Covered Pomegranate Scones

Scones–and pictures of scones–tend to evoke a happy, airy, lighthearted feeling in your day. Delicate with a touch of decadence, scones and afternoon tea are for days of sunshine and butterflies and a spring breeze and smiles.

But let’s get honest here for a minute, blog honest. Life isn’t always joyful. Days aren’t always full of sun. Lace tablecloths, embroidered napkins, and sweet cream won’t always cut it. Sometimes life is dark.

Chocolate Covered Pomegranate Scones
Chocolate Covered Pomegranate Scones

So let’s bring on the dark chocolate and the deep pomegranate for those days. Because there is a scone for every occasion and every mood. And scones help. They always help. Chocolate covered pomegranate scones most of all.

If I wasn’t an avid disliker of all things vampire (I’m looking at you Twilight), I’d make a crack about these being vampire scones, with their deep black chocolate morsels covering blood red pomegranate jelly. The photos certainly fit that style! But like I said…anti vampire…so…

Chocolate Covered Pomegranate Scones

Chocolate Covered Pomegranate Scones

Making these scones is a cinch. Basically just add chocolate covered pomegranates to my simple cream scones; eventually I’ll make a recipe with fresh pomegranate arils and various add-ins probably revolving around chocolate, but when you aren’t having the best day, you want quick and easy. Take the shortcut. I did. I don’t judge. The chocolate covered pomegranates are bigger than you’d think, so you may want to chop them up a bit before mixing them in. I chose not to and ended up with some bites of plain scone and some bites of chocolate/pomegranate chewy goodness. Either option is going to be delicious.

So when your day is a little darker than you want it to be, do something to take care of yourself and pop a tray of these in the oven.

chocolate covered pomegranate scones

Chocolate Covered Pomegranate Scones

Chocolate Covered Pomegranate Scones

ingredients

  • 200 g self raising flour
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 50 g ultrafine baking sugar
  • 150-200 mL heavy whipping cream (always start with the lower amount)
  • 1/2 cup chocolate covered pomegranate seeds, chopped or whole depending on preference
Preheat oven to 220°C (450°F). Place rack as high as possible in oven. Line a baking tray with parchment paper and set aside.
Sift flour and salt together in a medium sized mixing bowl. Add the sugar and chocolate covered pomegranate seeds, mixing until well distributed.
Add 150 mL cream then work in by hand by rubbing in the cream trying to incorporate as much air as possible until fully mixed. DO NOT OVERMIX. If the mix is too dry, now add the extra cream until the dough is wet enough to hold together.
Place dough on a heavily floured surface and knead a couple of times until relatively smooth. Pat down to desired height (we did 1 cm as usual). Cut out 5 cm circles with a crimped scone cutter and place on the baking tray. HINT: dip the cutter in flour before cutting out each scone. Knead the extras back together and repeat until most of the dough is used up.

Bake for 8-10 minutes (we did 8) until they have risen and are slightly browned around the edges and on top.

Recipes: Golden Raspberry Coconut Scones

Did you miss me? Of course you did, because everyone loves scones. So maybe it isn’t me you missed, and it’s just the scones you were pining after? Should I be concerned? Are my friends only friends with me because I bring them baked goods?!

Golden Raspberry Coconut Scones

Golden Raspberry Coconut Scones

Well, yeah I think they are, but the dictionary defines friends as “recipe taste testers”, right? Or at least that’s what all my friends tell me. I can go weeks, months, YEARS without talking to my friends, so long as when I come back I bring them yummy baked goods. Again, so they tell me through mouthfuls of scones, cookies, and cupcakes. And banana bread. Peanut butter chocolate swirled banana bread to be exact. But that’s another story and another recipe.

Why the long absence and subsequent promise to beging of forgiveness and subsequent promise to be a better friend through more frequent recipe updates? Well I made a massive career change (from science-y graduate school to artsy acting), made even more massive life changes, made some location moves (to my parents’ house sans kitchen for a few miserable months–because of the no kitchen; my parents are lovely–and then to my own apartment), and basically just took my life and shook it upside down like a bully in elementary school looking for lunch money. Unfortunately, money scones didn’t fall out. 

Golden Raspberry Coconut Scones

Golden Raspberry Coconut Scones

But I missed baking and sharing my recipes with you! So I decided to try to come back. And since berry season will be upon us before we know it, what better way to kick it off than with a hunt for golden raspberries?

Golden raspberries are like red raspberries’ shy cousin. They are less in-your-face tart and a little more delicate, but have generally the same flavor profile. And they go just as well with coconut as any summery berry! My “Berry Lady” at our local farmer’s market recommended I try them out in place of red raspberries for scones because they can be a little sturdier and hold up better to baking. She had me at “berry” though so it wasn’t a hard sell! And look how pretty and bright they came out!

Golden Raspberry Coconut Scones

Golden Raspberry Coconut Scones

You can easily sub red or black raspberries if you can’t find golden.

golden raspberry coconut scones

ingredients

  • 250g all purpose flour
  • 3/4 tsp baking soda
  • 1/4 salt
  • 50 g ultrafine baking sugar
  • 1 cup golden raspberries
  • 2/3 cup shredded coconut, sweetened
  • 150 mL whipping cream

Preheat oven to 450°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, salt, and sugar. Toss in berries and coconut.

Slowly add in whipping cream until the dough is moistened and coming together. Turn out onto a floured surface.

Pat down to desired thickness and cut out scones in desired size rounds (1 cm and 5 cm, respectively). Place on baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes. Remove to a wire rack to cool.

Golden Raspberry Coconut Scones

Golden Raspberry Coconut Scones

Recipe: White Chocolate Blueberry Scones

Yes, I realize that your favorite source for recipes, facts about afternoon tea, and tea room reviews seemingly went missing for a few weeks. I mean, not even a scone recipe? That’s like borderline as severe as the apocalypse. But as much as I apologize, I also promise that I had a good reason.

white chocolate blueberry scones

white chocolate blueberry scones

See, in addition to my job as the household’s resident Anglophile and baker, I am also an actress. Well, aspiring actress who every time she says aspiring before actress is corrected by people around her because vocabulary and commitment is very important in the industry. So I’m an actress. And pursuing acting as a career can get very time consuming, particularly when you have to commute into Hollywood for 16 straight days. Yeah that happened. It also makes one not really feel like turning on an oven. Or blogging. Or doing anything but sleeping when at home.

But I was thinking about you the whole time and feeling insanely guilty for not posting. So to make it up to you, I am posting my favorite scone recipe thusfar. 

Recipe: Triple Berry Scones

If two is better than one, than three is better than two, right? Well that answer is a resounding yes when berries are involved, that much I know! Scones with one berry (with me it’s usually strawberry)? Awesome. Scones with two berries? Amazing. But scones with three berries? Transcendent!

I’ll be honest, I really struggled with the desire to turn these into Quadruple Berry Scones. But that just seemed like a slippery slope to Bazillion Berry Scones or Scone Berries where the dough became more berry than scone. Though would that really have been a bad thing? It’d certainly make getting one of your five a day easier if all you had to do was eat a scone. Eat five scones (so not hard to do) and you’re all set for twenty four hours.

Triple Berry Scones

Triple Berry Scones

Tea Cakes

A couple of the tea houses I’ve reviewed serve a slice of tea cake with their scone course, and it got me thinking (as so many things do) about what exactly is a tea cake. Since it’s a cake and a lot of the mini desserts served at tearooms are little cakes, why is it served in the scone course and not the dessert course? Burning questions!

Well I did some digging. Turns out the answer is as simple as you’d think!

 

Are they cakes?

Tea cake as a cake (no it's not the scone or the muffin)

Tea cake as a cake (no it’s not the scone or the muffin)

In some parts of the world, yes. When a tea cake is literally a small slice of cake (typical of Australian, North America, and India), it is usually a pound, heavy sponge, or spice cake.  Only a single layer, these tea cakes are not frosted, but instead are topped with a dusting of powdered sugar or a light glaze. The spice cake is more common in North America, while the heavy sponge variety is found in Australia or India. When a tea cake is basically a pound cake, it’s just a tearoom’s variation on the slightly more traditional cake served. Tea cakes—when they are cakes—can also contain fruits such as cranberries, blueberries, or apricots.

 

Are they bread?

In some parts of the world, yes. A tea cake is more akin to a bread when served in the United Kingdom. A small, sweet, yeast-based bun often containing dried fruit, a tea cake is typically split, toasted, and buttered to be served with tea. The most famous tea cake is served in Bath, England and is known as a Sally Lunn. Top it with cinnamon butter and be prepared to die from deliciousness overdose.

Bread-like tea cakes are also served in Sweden where they are a sweetened wheat soda bread served with butter and jam.

 

Are they cookies?

Tea cakes as a cookie (photo credit foodsofourlives.com)

Tea cakes as a cookie (photo credit foodsofourlives.com)

In some parts of the world, yes.  Cookie tea cakes are dense cookies made with sugar, butter, eggs, flour, milk, and additional flavorings.  Common flavors are nut-based like almond or hazelnut.  They are very dense and crumbly, and can be quite messy as they are usually coated in a layer of powdered sugar.  When they first crumbed into the world, they were an accompaniment to bitter teas; the sugar both in the cookie and the coating were meant to balance the astringency from black tea.

Now a cookie tea cake by any other name is still a cookie tea cake, but they are also commonly known as Russian tea cakes, Mexican wedding cakes/cookies, polvornes, or butterballs.

 

Hmmm…with all these different answers for “what is a tea cake” I may have to do a recipe series for you so you can try them all!

Recipe: Strawberry Cream Cheese Scones

So just in case you couldn’t tell from these, and these, I love strawberries. I really love all berries, but strawberries are my favorite. And as strawberry season begins to come to a close and I start to tear up at the prospect of months and months without this delicious berry, I decided to make another few recipes to get our final strawberry fix. Best part, scones can freeze so if you hurry up and make the scones now, you can enjoy them in the fall when everyone else is eating apples. You’ll be eating strawberry scones and gloating to yourself (not out loud since that’s not nice after all, but inside is totally okay!).

Strawberry Cream Cheese Scones

Strawberry Cream Cheese Scones

When I went to my first afternoon tea as a little girl, one of the finger sandwiches served was a strawberry cream cheese sandwich, and since it was pink and I adored pink I had to love it. Ever since, strawberry cream cheese has become one of those things I buy at the store with excitement but then rarely get around to using because I forget to buy bagels. Now, I’ll never have wasted strawberry cream cheese again because I can always make these scones! They are sooooo creamy and moist that I can’t put enough “ooooo” at the end of the “so” to get my point across. Think similar to the scones that use mascarpone cheese like Vanilla Dream scones or the Strawberry Vanilla scones that were my last strawberry creation.Yeah, they rival that level of creamy, mouth-meltingness.

The cream cheese doesn’t overwhelm the strawberries, but instead just adds a delightfully subtle tang and lots of cream. Did I mention they were creamy? Okay good.

But the best part about these scones (besides the giant chunks of strawberries) is the color…BRIGHT PINK!!! Five-year-old Jenna is dancing around in her twirly dresses with joy. These are the perfect scones for a little girl’s afternoon tea party, baby girl baby shower, or just a day that needs a little pink thrown in.

Strawberry Cream Cheese Scones

Strawberry Cream Cheese Scones

strawberry cream cheese scones

ingredients

  • 200 g plain flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 50 g ultrafine baking sugar
  • 1 cup chopped strawberries
  • 200 g strawberry cream cheese
  • up to 6 tbsp water as needed

directions

Preheat oven to 220°C (450°F). Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt into a mixing bowl. Add the sugar, strawberries, and cream cheese. Rub together the ingredients until evenly clumped. Add the water a little bit at a time and then knead into the dough until smooth. Do not overwork, but you don’t need to be as overly concerned with being delicate as you do with cream scones.
Place dough on a very floured surface and knead a few more times. Pat out to 1 cm thick. Cut 5 cm rounds from the dough with biscuit cutter and place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Reform and continue until there is no more dough.Bake for 8-10 minutes (8) until lightly browned and cooked through.
Strawberry Cream Cheese Scones

Strawberry Cream Cheese Scones

Ooooo, so many fun ideas: cut into flowers or hearts, top with more strawberries, top with a vanilla or lemon glaze….so those might not be traditional (and by traditional I mean British) scone things to do, but when strawberries are involved tradition can go out the window.

Recipe: Peanut Butter and Jelly Scones

I love peanut butter. Like LOVE IT. So much so that I could probably live off it. In fact if you saw my pantry, you’d probably think that I do. There’s crunchy peanut butter, creamy peanut butter, white chocolate peanut butter, cinnamon raisin peanut butter, almond butter (yes I know that doesn’t technically count but it’s still fantastic and obsessive), dark chocolate peanut butter, honey peanut butter, banana nut peanut butter, powdered peanut butter, and there may or may not be even more jars of the same varieties because I’m so afraid to run out of peanut butter that I buy extra jars unnecessarily.

And by may or may not, I totally mean there is. What? I eat it with practically everything! It’s delicious!

Peanut Butter and Jelly Scones

Peanut Butter and Jelly Scones

So it was a no-brainer that peanut butter scones, and possibly a whole host of peanut butter based scones, would eventually show up on this site. Hey, if I can make scones out of mascarpone cheese, why not peanut butter? Okay those have nothing to compare each other to and I just wanted to justify my peanut butter obsession.

Recipe: Spiced Peach Scones

Well, my friends, today is the last peach recipe in my short series of peach scones. Are you sad too? I wish sometimes that all fruit was available ripe and perfect year round so that if I had a hankering for–let’s say–peaches in winter because my Spiced Peach scones would be the perfect holiday baked good, I could find peaches to make them as tasty in December as they would be in the height of peach season.

The agricultural world is so not fair.

Spiced Peach Scones

Spiced Peach Scones

Then again, if we had the full spectrum of fruit available year round, maybe we wouldn’t appreciate the excitement and delight of each fruit coming into season. Would I cherish each carton of fresh strawberries if they were always as delicious as they are in the blush of spring? Maybe not. Maybe seasonal produce is nature’s way of giving us something to look forward too (though it definitely stinks that all my favorite fruits are spring and early summer fruits).

This recipe was a challenge for me because I had nothing to base it on. Even some recipes that I create are based in part on recipes in books, like the peach basil ones of last week were adapted from a strawberry lavender scone I found somewhere else. But none of the recipes I have bookmarked or saved used compote as its primary source of liquid. I really was flying blind here.

Spiced Peach Scones

Spiced Peach Scones

I wanted to try cooking the fruit before incorporating it into the scone, so I decided to make a heated mixture of those fresh peaches we’ve been working with and some spices. The only problem is that I had no idea how to do it! I knew it wouldn’t be as simple as putting peaches in a saute pan and just letting them heat up. Yet I still had never made a compote before so was clueless as to how much sugar to add to the peaches, when to boil versus simmer, and how long it would take.

After some research and a little bit of math (real world application!) I attempted to make a spiced peach compote. It was so easy, I wondered why I haven’t been making fruit compotes my whole life. I feel like a whole new world of oatmeal toppings and desserts was just shown to me. Seriously, compotes are now a revelation for me: a thick, spiced syrup of gooey ripe peaches and melted sugar…are you drooling yet? You better be peeling those peaches at least!

Spiced Peach Scones

Spiced Peach Scones

Probably because the main liquid here is a thick syrup, these scones are very dense unlike the majority of scones I make. The first time I made these I also overworked the dough, and I think it was because I didn’t add enough other liquid to incorporate the ingredients without kneading too much. Lesson to all scone makers: it is more important to lightly handle the dough than using less flour on your workspace or having less cleanup. Add more liquid to the dough so you have to knead it less. You won’t regret it.

The peaches are wonderfully soft and sweet with the spices mulling about them. Your kitchen will smell incredible, making these not only one of the best tasting scones you’ll ever make, but also one of the best air fresheners you ever used. More incentive to make multiple batches!

Spiced Peach Scones

Spiced Peach Scones

Spiced Peach Scones

Ingredients for Compote

  • 10 ounces chopped peeled peaches
  • 1/4 cup white sugar
  • 1/4 tsp nutmeg
  • 1/4 tsp allspice
  • 1/2 tsp cinnamon
Ingredients for Scones

  • 200 g all-purpose flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 50 g ultrafine sugar
  • Compote
  • 1/4 cup heavy whipping cream

Making the Compote
Put peaches in a small saucepan. Add sugar, stirring to coat completely. Turn stove to medium heat.
As the sugar dissolves, the peaches will release a lot of liquid. Bring this liquid to a boil. Add nutmeg, allspice, and cinnamon. Stir well. Once mixture is boiling, leave over heat for 4 minutes to reduce liquid, stirring frequently.
Reduce heat and simmer for 2 minutes. Pour into a glass bowl and allow to cool to room temperature. Bask in its incredible smell. Resist urge to grab a spoon and dig into the compote. Do not pour over vanilla ice cream. Do not spoon over oatmeal. Do not do anything with it but let it cool.
Making the Scones
Preheat oven to 450°F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper. Set aside.
In a large mixing bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. Make sure everything is well mixed.
Add the COOLED compote (I didn’t let mine cool enough and my hands were definitely heating up when incorporating it to the dry ingredients). Once fully incorporated, add whipping cream one tablespoon at a time until dough has formed and is very moist. DO NOT OVERWORK THE DOUGH. The compote already adds a heavier element to the dough so it will be denser than most scones, but overworking it will result is very tough scones. And that would be no bueno.
Turn out onto a floured surface and pat down to desired thickness (1 cm). Cut out (5 cm) rounds and place on baking sheet. Bake for 8 minutes or until they are puffy and beginning to turn golden. Remove to a wire rack to cool slightly before serving.
Spiced Peach Scones

Spiced Peach Scones

Yes these are good with clotted cream :)

Recipe: Peach Basil Scones

Unsurprisingly, the basil in my mom’s backyard is still growing like a weed. A ridiculously pleasant smelling, sweet tasting, very welcome weed, but a week nonetheless. She is almost desperate to find uses for it (okay not that desperate, caprese salads are a frequent occurrence at mealtimes) so I volunteered to add my mom’s basil to my dad’s peaches in my scones. See how scone making can become a family affair?

Peach Basil Scones

Peach Basil Scones

Peach and basil have an affinity for each other; in fact, basil is like vanilla in that it has an affinity with almost all fruit. I would say basil is like the social butterfly of herbs. It really is friends with everyone and is very inclusive. Our kindergarteners would do well to learn from basil.

The best way to check if you used enough basil in a recipe is the good old-fashioned smell test. Once the basil is all stirred in, sniff the flour (be careful not to snort up the flour as I’m sure that would be unpleasant and nasty) and use your judgment. Can you smell the basil, or do you have to struggle to get a whiff? If it isn’t a clear smell, add a little bit more. Don’t worry, it mellows as it is heated so it won’t overwhelm your little peaches.

Peach Basil Scones

Peach Basil Scones

In fact, the basil is almost an aftertaste. Think about how in wines, you describe the end of the taste as the “finish”…these scones have a basil finish. Unless of course you happen upon a large piece of basil in a single bite and then that bit is going to be basil forward. These also work well with clotted cream, like most scones with two or less flavors, but the heavy cream runs a risk of taking over the light and airy texture of the scone.

These puff up nice and high, and their flavor follows in its perkiness. Peach basil scones truly are the summery butterflies of scones!

Peach Basil Scones

Peach Basil Scones

Peach Basil Scones

Ingredients

  • 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/4 cup plus 1 tbsp ultra fine sugar
  • 1 1/2 tbsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp baking soda
  • 1 cup chopped fresh peaches
  • 1 1/2 tbsp chopped fresh basil, or to scent
  • 1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp heavy whipping cream

Preheat oven to 450°F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper. Set aside.

 In a large mixing bowl, sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and baking soda. Add the peaches and the basil (you may need to add more basil depending on how strong your leaves are). Toss to combine.
Add whipping cream and begin to knead together until dough forms. If mixture is too dry, add one tablespoon of cream at a time. Turn out onto a floured work surface.
Roll or pat out dough to desired thickness (1 cm) and then cut out scones with a scone cutter (5 cm). Place on baking sheet. Bake 8-10 minutes until scones have puffed up and the edges are golden brown. Turn out immediately onto a wire rack to cool.

 

Peach Basil Scones

Peach Basil Scones